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Social Networks

Social Networks

Sites like Facebook and Twitter provide users with a place to share personal information with friends family and the public — an activity that's proven to be hugely compelling to Internet users. In response to the demand technology is evolving to encourage the disclosure of information that was formerly discreet (like location) and to enable the sharing of information even when not sitting in front of a traditional computer (like from mobile phones).

But it doesn't take much forethought to realize that there are countless privacy pitfalls in a world where a near-endless stream of personal bits is indiscriminately posted indefinitely stored and quietly collected and analyzed by marketers, identity thieves, and professional government snoops in America and abroad. The public controversies that have erupted to date — Facebook's drastic terms of service changes and Google Buzz's forced sharing of email contacts — are only the first snares in a rapidly growing thicket of social networking privacy issues.

Here are some of the ways EFF is working to protect your privacy as the use of social networks grows:

EFF has gone toe-to-toe with the government to uncover hidden details about how they use social networking sites for investigations data collection and surveillance.

For the fifth day of the 12 Days of 2FA, we turn to the world’s largest social media platform: Facebook. Facebook calls its two-factor authentication “Login Approvals,” but the idea is exactly the same: signing in from a new browser will require something you have (like your phone) as...

Technology company leaders are reportedly meeting with President-elect Donald Trump and members of his transition team tomorrow in New York. Mr. Trump’s relationship with technology companies has been frosty, and his statements during the campaign and recent cabinet picks raise serious concerns about the...

Jillian York is the director for international freedom of expression with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. She said a lot of the content takedowns they've seen involved nudity or sexual content, citing a couple of famous examples from earlier this year. "A photo of the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen was...

Facebook worked on special software so it could potentially accommodate censorship demands in China, according to a report in the New York Times. "Kudos to the Facebook employees who brought this to the attention of the New York Times," said the EFF's global policy analyst Eva Galperin."It's very nice to...

The business-focused global social network LinkedIn faces being blocked in Russia after a court ruled that it broke a new Russian law on data storage. The new law is contained within surveillance legislation signed by President Vladimir Putin in July 2014. Eva Galperin, from the U.S.-based nongovernmental Electronic Frontier Foundation...